


A Boy at Midnight

by TeaandBanjo



Category: Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-19
Updated: 2019-01-19
Packaged: 2019-10-12 10:20:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,179
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17465690
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TeaandBanjo/pseuds/TeaandBanjo
Summary: A boy is out partying with his friends.  Stuff happens.





	A Boy at Midnight

Ragtime from the slightly out-of tune piano thumped through the room,  motivating the dancers, and making conversation difficult, if anyone wanted to talk to any of the club’s occupants.  Perhaps the pianist had also been sampling the gin, as a careful listener would occasionally grit his teeth at the wrong notes.

Jack Robinson tipped his chair back further into the shadows.  It didn't matter- the dark-haired girl was dancing with someone else now.  He had known it was coming, that he was just a passing fancy of hers. It still hurt.

Never mind. He set his glass down. There were other women.   _ Would that lovely redhead be interested? _

"Jack!"  The voice at his elbow was a fierce whisper.  "The cops are here!" Sam smelled of smoke.

Jack looked to his other side.  "Help me get Tommo. He's out of it."  The mentioned friend was face down on the table, which was also cluttered with an assortment of dirty glasses.  Jack spotted his cap in the mess, and slapped it onto his head.

Jack and Sam lifted Tommo, and without further discussion they hauled him to his feet, and towards the hallway to  the back door.

"Ladies' loo," suggested Jack over the noise.  "It's closer." 

The three of them burst through the door.  There were no ladies present to make a fuss.  They let Tommo slump drunkenly to the floor, and quickly raised the window.  Sam climbed through into the alley. "Hand him out. I'm not buying the useless bastard another drink, ever."

“He was buying your drinks,” objected Jack, gripping his unconscious friend’s lapels and trying to lift him.

Jack struggled, but the shout of "Raid"  coming through the door energized him. Tommo was too much like a sack of potatoes for Jack's liking, but once his shoulders were through the window, Sam took most of the weight and lifted the lad through.

Jack was over the sill and outside in a moment.  

Sam looked at him.  “You got a plan, now?”

“Uh…”  Jack hadn’t considered anything beyond getting out ahead of the raid.  “Let’s get Tom home.”

“Don’t wanna,” said Tommo, from the ground.  He emphasized his point by vomiting.

“You are going anyway.”  Jack stepped back.  _ I only have the one pair of good shoes. _

“Right, let’s get this over with,”  muttered Sam. “It’s just a couple of blocks.”

  
  
  


Thommo seemed comfortable, face down on the grass in front of the neat, two-story house.

“Let's just leave him,” suggested Sam.

“We should get him to bed.”   _ It isn't that much farther. _

“His parents will catch us.  Besides, the door is locked.”  Sam shrugged.

“Check it.”  Jack wondered if they might get lucky about just one thing tonight.   _ The most beautiful girl in Melbourne has moved on from John Robinson, the club wasn’t any fun, we just missed getting caught in a raid... _

Sam scooted back.  “Locked.”

“I wish I knew how to pick a lock...wait a minute...he has a key to his own house, right?”.  Jack crouched to examine his friend’s motionless body.

“I guess.  I'm not going to go rummaging through a mate's trousers.”  Sam glanced left and right down the empty street. Jack thought he was he was about to bolt.

Jack considered the problem.  Tom's jacket had pockets, and so did his waistcoat.  Had he ever seen his friend take out a house key? No?   “We can't leave him out here.” 

Tom made a vague protest when Jack rolled him over and started on the jacket, which seemed somewhat smudged.  Outside chest pocket contained a crumpled handkerchief. Also some coins, a ticket stub from the theater, and some girl’s card.   Inside pockets held a mostly empty package of cigarettes.  _ No key.  The vest pocket… _

“Got it!”  

“They will hear us come in,” Sam pointed out.  

“The neighbors will see us if we stay here.  I’m going to go see if there are any lights on at the back of the house.”

Soon Jack was looking up at a couple of upper floor windows.  One of them had a single light on, somewhere back in the room.

“We’re screwed,” said Sam.  “That’s his parent’s room.”

“So the the other one is his sister’s?”  Jack remembered blonde, teenage Suzy, and the little dark haired Patricia.   He handed the house key to his friend, and picked up a handful of dirt from a vegetable bed.  “Take the key and get him up to bed.”

“I told you, they will hear us,” whispered Sam.

“I’ll keep their attention.”  Jack threw the clump of dirt against the girl’s bedroom window.   “Go!”

Sam’s expression of horror spoke volumes, and he sprinted back past the house as Jack picked up some more dirt.

Soon, there were two girlish faces at the bedroom window.  

“ But, soft!   what light from yonder window breaks?”  proclaimed Jack, sweeping off his cap taking a dramatic pose.

The window slid up, and Suzy leaned on the windowsill, clutching her braid in excitement.

“It is the East, …”   continued Jack, hoping that his memory was close enough.  “ Arise, fair sun, and kill the envious moon,  Who is already sick and pale with grief..”

He wasn’t sure if he was remembering the lines correctly, but Suzy was fascinated, and her younger sister was staring at her with a puzzled expression.

Somewhere around “ It is my lady, O, it is my love!  O, that she knew she were!”,   the other window rose, and an angry parental head appeared.

“Shove off!  Proper girls are asleep right now!”  The man was clearly getting his arms into a dressing gown.  “I’ll come down and teach you Shakespeare with a stick!”

“Do you bite your thumb at me?”  yelled Jack, wondering if Sam had been successful yet.

“Useless drunken …”  muttered the man, turning away from the window.

Jack decided that he was out of time, and all the verse had left his head.  Also, how long did it take an angry man to find a cricket bat and stomp down a flight of stairs?

He took to his heels, and got back to the front of the house just as Sam closed the door.  It seemed the two of them had decided on a direction, down the sidewalk, generally towards Sam’s place.

Somewhere in front of the chemist, and the grocer where Sam worked, Jack realized that he’d outdistanced his friend.  He leaned against the store window. Everything was dark and quiet, which seemed weird, and sort of unsettling.

“The fun it doesn’t start till twelve on happy old Broadway,”  sang Jack. “So what's the use of going home until the break of day, Now..” 

“You are off key,”  panted Sam, who had finally caught up.  

“Am not.”   _ Sam should talk.  Couldn’t carry a tune in a bag. _

“Who’s stupid idea was that particular club, anyway?”  Sam was bent over, hands on knees, breathing hard.

“It was Tommo’s idea.   Did you manage to get him to his room?”

“I dropped him on the rug in the parlour.  He’s bloody heavy, and I heard his da coming down the stairs.”  

Jack figured it was too late to fix that oversight.  Tommo would either get himself up to bed, or get found by a parent in the morning.  “I think we’re done, tonight. I’m out of money, anyway.”

“Not drunk enough, myself, but what’s a bloke going to do?”  Sam pulled his cap more firmly down on his head.

“Go home and sleep it off, I guess.”  Jack felt vaguely disappointed.

“Back to work tomorrow.”  Sam looked uncharacteristically somber in the yellow glow of the street lamp.  “Gotta work to pay for the fun.”

“Night,”  mumbled Jack, and watched Sam shuffle away.

  
  
  
  


Jack’s collar was turned up against the damp cold, and his shoes tapped against the paving.   All the houses were dark, and no one peeked out to see young Robinson. “I’m a member of the midnight crew, … Rise with the sun, go to bed with the moon.”

The last clock he passed had said midnight.  Jack knew he had another couple of blocks walk back home.  

Jack wasn't sure if he were still unacceptably drunk.  It would be sensible to sneak back in the house.  _ Mum is going to be asleep, no point in having a scene, really. _  Climbing in the dining room window wouldn't wake anyone, he'd carry his shoes upstairs, and no one would be the wiser.

He retrieved an empty metal pail from the shed, then he placed it just so under the dining room window, the one with the broken latch.  That gave him the height and reach to open the window, swing a leg over the sill .... and fall through. There he was, on the floor under the window.   _ That wasn't too much noise.   _

The light came on.  "John Robinson," said his mother, "I've been waiting up for you."

"I can explain, Mum!"  

"You don't need to."  Her hands were on her hips.  "I know what a boy has been up to when he shows up at an ungodly hour, smelling of cigarettes and gin."

“Mum…”  John Robinson decided that he couldn't actually explain.  He spread his hands apologetically.

"Come in the kitchen.”  She turned without waiting to see if he would follow.

John Robinson struggled to his feet and decided it was wisest to get it over with.  He slumped into his usual chair at the breakfast table.  _ Why is the mail here? _

“You got a letter in the post.”  Mum sat down across from him.

“Thanks,” he said, absently.  The letter looked official. It was addressed “Mr. John Robinson”, by a typewriter.  

“Open it.”

He got a thumb under the flap of the envelope and managed to rip it open without mangling the single sheet of paper inside.  He was confused by the printed form, the blank lines filled in, again, by typewriter. 

“Congratulations,”  it began. Then “  John Robinson    ” typed to fill in a blank space.

“MUM!” he said, then remembered to keep his voice down.  “I’m accepted to the police academy. Cadet class of 1913.”

Mother was frowning at him.   _ Isn’t this a good thing? _

“Did you see Eliza Meyers at the club?”

“Yes’m.”   _ What does this have to do with anything? _

“Her mother had to go get her out of jail, after the raid.”  Mum had her arms crossed. “The two of them stopped by to ask me if you were home, yet.  Eliza remembered seeing you earlier in the evening, but not after. They wanted to make sure you were safe.”

“There was a raid?”  asked Jack, feeling himself blushing.  “Sam and i must have left before that.”

“You stick with that story, John Robinson.”  She paused for effect. Jack decided that he was not going to give her the satisfaction of a reply, and pointedly re-read his letter.  

“....required to report Monday, January 6th, 1913 …”

“Do you think,”  she interrupted, “if you had been caught in the raid of an illegal drinking establishment, that the Victorian police force would still consider you morally fit?”

Jack opened his mouth, then decided that silence was probably the best policy, as he couldn’t think of any reason that Mum was wrong about this.

“Do you think the applications committee would hesitate to give your place to someone else?”  Mum stood up, took her empty cup and plate to the sink, and turned back to face him. “You need to decide if you are serious about the joining the police, John Robinson.”

John Robinson watched his mother leave, heard her slippers against the hall carpet, and heard the bedroom door close behind her.

The kitchen was quiet, except the tick of the clock in the next room.    _ Am I going to have to give up fun with my friends?  Sam is older than I am, and he’s still having fun...when he  isn’t griping about working behind the counter. _

Jack got up, slowly, and turned off the kitchen light.   _ It does seem like some of the evening was more terror than fun. _

_ Why did we think that club would be fun anyway?   _ Jack carried his shoes and jacket down the hall to his bedroom.   _ Would Sam leave me, dead drunk on the sidewalk?  Come to think of it, would Sam actually be friends with anyone who didn’t have money for a drink? _

He dropped his coat on the back of a chair, undid his tie.   _ Maybe my life would be happier if I stayed away from fast, easily distracted young women. _

Rain rolled down the window, melting the darkness and making it run.   _ Do I really want to be a junior clerk at the chemist?  I mean, until the old man retires and everyone moves up one place. _

_ What have I accomplished last night?  Aside from illegal drinking, public drunkenness, disturbing the peace, probably breaking and entering…. _ He viciously crumpled his shirt and tossed it into the corner.

Jack sat slowly on the edge of the bed, listening to the springs creak.    _ Oh, fuck.  I’m going to have to go apologize to Tom’s sister and his parents tomorrow. _

_ I really need to clean up my act.   _

 

**Author's Note:**

> Jack is reciting Romeo’s balcony speech to an impressionable 15 year old girl. He’s being an arse. 
> 
> The “bite my thumb” bit is also from Romeo and Juliet, Act 1, Scene 1, where the Montague and Capulet servants are brawling.
> 
> The initial piano number is “I’m a Member of the Midnight Crew”, which is an American song from 1909, about staying out late and partying.


End file.
